


Bucharest

by ritsuko



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Anxiety, Confused Bucky Barnes, Hiding in Plain Sight, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, M/M, Post-Split, Pre-Slash, Worried Bucky Barnes, foggy memories, hiding from hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22694446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ritsuko/pseuds/ritsuko
Summary: After the events in Washington DC, the Winter Soldier is scared and running, and just might have found a low profile enough place to settle for the time being. Will all of that change when a face from his past comes knocking?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Bucharest

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again all; this chapter has been just sitting on my laptop for a year as I figured out what I was going to do with it. So, for your enjoyment, some tame domestic Buck Buck. 
> 
> Future chapters might not be quite as easy, and may delve more into anxiety, depression, abuse, and PTSD. I will change tags as that comes. Enjoy!

It's tiny and shitty, but it's his. For the first time in seventy years, there is finally something that he can call his own, even if it is a bleak little room in a rundown, unkempt building in a corner of the world that he hopes he can disappear into, that no one will ever find him. 

All he has to do is lay low. Hide. Run away. It's such an alien concept to the Winter Soldier that sometimes he catches himself gritting his teeth until his jaw aches. It was one thing to be a shadow operative, but this, to be out amongst people, trying to maintain a low profile, smiling and ordering his breakfast from locals- 

It's unnatural. He's not meant to have these things. He's a tool to be used. A weapon. Nothing more.

Bucky blinks rapidly, and realizes he's been standing in the doorway of the apartment a touch too long, and quickly comes in, locking the door behind him. Not that a simple deadbolt would keep anyone actually after him out. Silently, Bucky moves over to the decrepit table, He can't help but move like a ghost no matter where he goes, even in this tiny apartment. 

He breathes shakily. No one knows he's here.

Maybe no one will ever know he's here.

Bucky knows that's too much to hope for.

Gently, he sets a small sack of goods that can barely be called groceries on the table. He still can't bring himself to go into an actual store, they are just too confining, too many places to get trapped. The open air markets of Bucharest have been a godsend. He stops to shop only when it's utterly necessary. Even in this corner of the world, it isn't safe. Nowhere is safe from HYDRA. 

He hasn't gotten much; a couple pieces of fruit, a plastic wrapped sandwich, a few candy bars, gum and a newspaper. Absently, he pulls out the pack of gum and starts going for the radio. It's only ever tuned to the news. So much has changed there is a lot of it that he doesn't understand, so he constantly tries to find history books to fill in the gaps of his memory. Maybe someday he will venture into a library or a bookstore. Maybe.

After popping a piece of gum into his mouth, he flicks the knob of the device. It's always tuned to a news cast, and usually this side of the world is pretty dead, something going on in Russia or the Middle East or even America takes up the airwaves.

But not today.

The peppermint taste in his mouth quickly turns rancid, as the radio announcer tells of the tragic events unfolding in Sokovia. People dying, land floating in the sky, crashing to the ground. The Avengers, fighting robots in the sky.

The Avengers. 

Captain America.

Steve.

The announcer babbles on, the casualties are high and everything is the scene out of some dystopian future horror. But that's not what Bucky can think about.

Sokovia is within a six hour drive. Nothing for a man with a quinjet. 

_We're not safe here_ , the Soldier rasps in his brain, immediately on high alert. There was no fear in seeing Captain America again, only in the attention that it would bring. HYDRA was constantly watching Steve. 

But Bucky. . . 

He couldn't see Steve. Fuck, how could he? Not after everything. Hell, the last time that he'd seen the other man he'd tried to kill him, and he still couldn't remember all that much about him. There were snippets, but sometimes they faded like a dream that he'd woken from, barely there and then gone like smoke. 

Plus, there were too many other factors. All of the people he had killed. Howard Stark's gasping face flits in his periphery and he shuts his eyes wearily. No, he can't start thinking about all of the people. If he did, they would torment him like ghosts. It wouldn't be the first time.

He almost wishes he'd grabbed a bottle of vodka.

 _Alcohol will only dull your senses. You'll get us killed_. Comes the voice in his mind. He doesn't know when he started treating the Soldier like a separate entity, but there he is, pacing and lashing out inside him, disgusted with their current living situation, yet unwilling to go back to HYDRA. 

It could easily be done. 

But neither of them want that.

Bucky turns the radio off and spits his gum into the trash. He knows he should eat, should bathe, do anything but flop down on the dirty mattress on his floor, but that's what he does anyways. He counts the cracks in his ceiling like he's done a thousand times since he's gotten this apartment. 

Closing his eyes, he wills himself to sleep, but can't.

The man on the bridge-

The man on the island in the sky-

Is he okay?

Finally he turns, and grabs his notebook. He's taken to writing down anything he remembers. He flicks through the pages until his hand stops on a photo of the man in the uniform. Captain America. So strong and proud.

_'I'm with you 'til the end of the line.'_

That had meant something. He'd felt it. But he can't even be sure what the feeling is. He stares at the picture a long time, willing any sort of memory.

Nothing comes. With a frustrated sigh, he tosses the book down.

All he has is an unfamiliar room, a metal arm and the scars of his own foggy memories.

That's fine. Bucky breathes out shakily. It's better this way.


End file.
